Читать книгу Walking in Austria. 101 routes - day walks, multi-day treks and classic hut-to-hut tours онлайн

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In neighbouring Tyrol, a province that claims to be ‘nature’s own alpine garden’, early summer meadows can seem bewitchingly colourful and fragrant. Here too both limestone and crystalline mountains provide a range of habitats and the full gamut of alpine landscapes ranging from green wooded hills to glacier-draped peaks and dolomitic fingers of rock. Each has its own specific flora. In the highest valleys of the Ötztal Alps, for example, the deep blue-violet Primula glutinosa is worth noting, as is the pink-flowered creeping azalea Loiseleuria procumbens which is known to grow up to 3000m. Also found at a similar altitude on scree or rocky ridges, is the rare Mont Cenis bellfower, Campanula cenisia, a dwarf plant with tiny slaty-blue flowers. Among other surprises is a reported sighting of a fringe of martagon lilies (Lilium martagon) near the top of a cliff face at around 2235m by the Riffelsee. This plant with its pendulous Turkscap flowers is usually confined to woods or meadows.

The Hohe Tauern rewards botanist, walker and climber in equal measure. Around Austria’s highest peak, the Grossglockner, turf dampened by snowmelt produces a mass of Primula minima, its colour ranging from blue-mauve to magenta-pink. The wonderfully fragrant Daphne striata is also here. A straggling or prostrate bush 15–20cm tall, it has clusters of reddish purple flowers with a ruff of down-pointing leaves at its best in June. Among the gentians to be seen is the common but very lovely spring gentian, Gentiana verna, as well as Gentiana nivalis, the so-called snow gentian, and the biennial Gentianella ciliata, a brilliant blue flower with fringed lobes.